I am writing this column from Srinagar. It is peaceful and very much the paradise it always was. My wife and I are the guests of an old friend, Jyoti Wazir, whose father-in-law was the Kashmiri Pandit chief justice of the state. She has a lovely cottage, and a beautiful garden full of hydrangeas, roses, pansies, magnolia and fruiting trees. But the best thing for me is that right above her home, on the hillside opposite, is the Adi Shankaracharya temple in clear view.

Fact and legend both indicate that Shankara (788-820 CE) visited Kashmir. The city was at that time renowned for its Buddhist and Hindu scholarship. Ever since Ashoka conquered the Valley in third century BCE, Buddhism had flourished here. There is historical evidence that the fourth Buddhist Council was convened here in second century CE. Along with Buddhism, Kashmir was also the locus of a specific kind of Shaivite philosophy, whose founder was Vasugupta (800–850 CE). He was the author of Sivasutras, a collection of seventy-seven aphorisms also known as Trika Yoga, which essayed a specifically Kashmir Advaita tradition. This philosophy echoed Shankara’s monism, with the difference that Shiva was seen as the cosmic symbol of Brahman. Kashmir Shaivism also introduced the concept of Shakti as an integral part of Shiva worship. Shankara must have been aware of this powerful........

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